Kidnap the Sandy Claws
by Rebell
Summary: A simple slip of the tongue gives Megatron much MUCH more than he ever bargained for.


**Disclaimer: **_I make no claims on any of these characters. The most I have is a shirt featuring some of them. Please don't take that away too, for then I would be sad indeed._

**AN:** The plot for this was adopted over at the Bunny Farm, from one _lady_katana4544_, who in turn posted it for _ithalis64_, and asked for our favourite seekers to sing a certain song from the Nightmare Before Christmas. I was brutally assaulted by said bunny, and figured that if I was going to write for this fandom, my first one may as well be a cracky fic. Scared? You should be. XD

Lyrics are the words spoken in italics by the elite trine. For reference (and the curious), Starscream takes on the role of Shock (the witch), Thundercracker becomes Lock (the devil), and that leaves Skywarp to be Barrel (the other... thing). On with the fic!

~~--~~--~~

The Decepticons were bored. Bored out of their processors to be precise. This was rarely a good thing, and it was even worse because they couldn't even leave the base to rain down a cathartic storm of laserfire upon the hapless Autobots. For one thing, the obnoxious do-gooders were several thousand miles away, and for another, it was slagging _freezing_ outside.

The majority of the troops had congregated in one of the cavernous cargo holds, the only place where they could all fit without trouble and still have room to threaten each other periodically. Starscream and his two cohorts were muttering to each other in one corner: the occasional chortle emanating from their vocalizers was more than enough incentive for other mechs to give them a wide berth.

The other seekers were shifting nervously back and forth, flitting from one area to another and generally making a nuisance of themselves. They were joined by the Cassettes, and the rest of the mechs were just trying to ignore their flightier companions. They were bored too, but you didn't see _them _causing trouble. Though, this may have had more to do with the fact that even Megatron was present, reclining on a pile of crates with his red optics trained suspiciously on his Air Commander.

This continued for several breems, though the 'Cons became more and more concerned for their well-being as the snickers from the elite trine began to come more often, even from the normally stoic Thundercracker. As such, it came as something of a relief when the doors hissed open and the Constructicons entered, heading directly for the energon dispenser the rest of them had jury-rigged in lieu of the make-shift rec room. It had been the best they could do, considering that the _real _rec room was in a crumpled mess.

"Well?" Megatron demanded.

The combiner team exchanged brief looks as they sipped at their rations. Eventually, because it was either give bad news and maybe get slagged or not say a word and get dismantled for sure, Scrapper set aside his cube and said succinctly, "It ain't pretty. We're more or less stuck here until we can melt the ice. The engines were running so hot when we crashed that the ice melted then refroze around us. Even after the ice is melted, we'll still have a Pit of a time repairing all the damage."

The Decepticon leader cycled air through his vents, trying rather hard to keep calm. The Constructicons were, after all, the most qualified to make the necessary repairs to the _Nemesis_, and if they were lying around in pieces it would take that much longer to get out of this frozen wasteland. "How long will it take?"

Scrapper shifted, the whining of his servos as his bulk settled clearly audible. "Approximately two of this planet's weeks sir."

Megatron shot upright and everyone flinched backwards, and even the trine of snickering seekers broke off their conversation and took notice. "Over an _orn_? You wastes of scrap metal, what the slag are we supposed to do for _that _long?"

Their leader had a point. They had crashed into the Arctic some hours before, and they were already more fidgety than a captured turbofox. Two weeks would see them all offlined from using each other as target practice.

"Yeah," Rumble grumbled. "If I have to spend an orn trapped in here with _you_ mechs... I'd step in front of a cannon first."

"I can make that happen," Wildrider offered hopefully, and Rumble wisely silenced his vocalizer and scrambled for the safety of Soundwave.

"He's right though," offered someone else after accessing some datafiles. "There really isn't anything to do up here. There are some human legends about another human in a red suit that lives up here but—"

"Forget about it," interrupted Megatron dismissively. He'd read those same files when they'd first landed on this Primus-forsaken planet and he'd dismissed it as nothing more than backwards processing from an already backwards species. "What are you supposed to do about that anyways, kidnap the Sandy Claws?" He paused, unsure about that last part... perhaps it had been another phrase. But it was too late for that.

Music began echoing through the hold from an unspecified source, and even as scanners began searching for the location, the elite trine had bounded to their pedes, optics bright in anticipation. "_Kidnap Mr. Sandy Claws_?" they chorused, heads bobbing as they huddled together.

"_I wanna do it,_" Thundercracker cried in an oddly rhythmic tone.

"_Let's draw straws!" _was Skywarp's opinion, in that same cadence.

Starscream shook his head, hands closing around his trinemate's shoulders. "_Jack said we should work together. Three of a kind—_"

"_Birds of a feather!_" the other two chanted with their commander, "_Now and forever—"_

"Wheee!" they cried, activating their thrusters enough to levitate themselves, still jostling and grinning madly, singing, "_La la la la-la-la...la la la!"_

As they were not being very precise about where they aimed those thrusters, everyone else ducked lower to the ground, staring upwards in abject shock. More than a few were half convinced that they had been offlined in the crash and that this was all some crazy hallucination brought on by traumatized processors.

"_Kidnap the Sandy Claws, lock him up real tight, throw away the key and then turn out all the lights!"_

Starscream landed back onto solid ground and picked up a small box from the rubble. "_First,_" he crooned, scratchy vocalizer lending enough of a raw tone to set everyone's circuits on edge, "_we're going to set some bait inside a nasty trap and wait, and when he comes a-sniffing we will snap the trap and close the gate!" _He snapped the lid of the box down and grinned wickedly.

"_Wait!_" Thundercracker landed beside his commander and snatched away the box. Turning to their audience he raised a finger and hissed, "_I've got a better plan to catch this big red lobster man. Let's pop him in a boiling pot and when he's done we'll butter him up!"_

The two seekers were joined by Skywarp on the ground. The purple mech made his own grab for the box and they split up, dancing through the crowds and tossing the little crate back and forth as they all chanted gleefully, "_Kidnap the Sandy Claws, throw him in a box, bury him for ninety years, then see if he talks!"_

Starscream lighted easily beside Megatron and continued alone, "_Then Mr. Oogie Boogie man can take the whole thing over then!"_ He bowed and grinned as he spoke, holding out the crate to a rather confused war leader, then whirling away just short of actually handing over the box. "_He'll be so pleased I do declare, that he will cook him rare!"_

The trine rejoined in the centre of the room, and Skywarp and Starscream immediately began to tussle over the box, digging their claws in and lurching back and forth as Thundercracker cackled. "_Well I say that we take a cannon_," he asserted, powering up his own and sighting down its barrel, "_Aim it at his door and then knock three times and when he answers, Sandy Claws will be no more_!"

He received nothing for his troubles besides a smack on the head from Starscream, who'd won the box from a sulking Skywarp. "_You're so stupid_," the Air Commander hissed, "_Think now! If we blow him up to smithereens, -we- may lose some pieces and then Jack will beat us black and green!"_

The dark blue mech huffed momentarily but recovered enough to join in on what was now recognizable as a chorus.

"_Kidnap the Sandy Claws, tie him in a bag! Throw him in the ocean, then see if he is sad!_"

Starscream slung a companionable arm around Thundercracker and waltzed with him, circling the crates that their leader sat on. Their sharply contrasting voices made for an odd duet as they sang, "_Because Mr. Oogie Boogie is the meanest guy around, if I was on his Boogie list, I'd get out of town!_" They broke apart and skipped to the side as Skywarp materialized in front of Megatron, down on his knees and looking hopeful.

"_He'll be so pleased by our success, that he'll reward us too, I'll bet!_" Before Megatron could properly reconcile what was going on in front of him, 'Warp had bounded away to rejoin his trinemates in the middle of the room.

"_Perhaps he'll make his special brew, of snake and spider stew!_ _Mmm!"_

Mischief gleamed in their optics, Skywarp and Thundercracker crowding for position beside the Air Commander, soon so embroiled that they appeared not to notice when Starscream skipped forward to dance around Megatron's feet.

"_We're his little henchmen and we do our job with pride, we do our best to please him and stay on his good side!"_

There were more than a few huffs of disbelief: it was one thing to hear the blue and purple seekers sing it, but hearing those words come out of _Starscream_'s vocalizer? Ludicrous. Then again, considering the scene playing out in front of them...

The Air Commander appeared not to notice, pulling a rifle out of subspace and looking it over before glancing back at his two followers. Upon seeing them rolling around on the floor, still locked in combat, he lamented, "_I wish my cohorts weren't so dumb_."

Thundercracker looked up from scratching at his opponent's cockpit. "_I'm not the dumb one!_"

"_You're no fun!_" was Skywarp's opinion as he struggled to get back to his pedes.

Starscream poked out his glossa. "_Shut up!_"

"_Make me_!"

And true to form, Starscream backed away from a physical challenge, rubbing his hands together and cackling. "_I've got something, listen now! This one is real good, you'll see!_" He began darting in and out among the rest of them, peeking over shoulders and under arms as he chanted. "_We'll send a present to his door, upon there'll be a note to read!_"

And back to the centre of the room they went, crouched down in their conspiratorial poses around the box, and Starscream still singing his plan in a low voice so that the 'audience' all had to lean closer to hear. "_Now in the box we'll wait and hide until his curiosity entices him to look inside, and then we'll have him, one two three!"_ And they sprang out on their commander's count, startling everyone and making more than a couple reach automatically for their rifles.

Apparently oblivious to the unease and general level of insecurity they were causing, they began a game of hide and seek, using the other mechs for cover as they sang. "_Kidnap the Sandy Claws, beat him with a stick, lock him up for ninety years, see what makes him tick! Kidnap the Sandy Claws, chop him into bits, Mr. Oogie Boogie is sure to get his kicks!_"

The music playing reached a crescendo and the trine took to the air once more, cavorting wildly and swooping about just high enough to both avoid the ceiling and their fellow mechs. "_Kidnap the Sandy Claws, see what we will see, lock him in a cage and then throw away the key!_"

They held this last note, high and long as they made one final pass before making for the door and exiting. As soon as they were gone, the music cut out, leaving everyone in the room in shocked silence. They could hear the wayward seekers getting further away, shrieking and chortling as they raced along the corridors doing Primus only knew what.

Very slowly, all heads swivelled to face Megatron, looking for an explanation, any explanation. Their leader was still staring at the doors, red optics wide. A sharp fizz emanated from his helm, followed by a wisp of smoke.

He twitched, optics dimming as he forcefully sent his systems into a reboot to restore them to working functionality. Then he turned to the Constructicons, pinning them with an almost desperate stare. "You will get us out of here in no less than ten of this planet's rotations." Those who still had enough processing power noted that it sounded less like an order and more like a plea.

All the same though, there was very little disagreement. The green and purple mechs downed the rest of their rations and bolted for the door. The longer they stayed, the worse the seekers were likely to get. And another show like _that_ would no doubt send the entire army into stasis from fritzed processors.

Soundwave turned his attention inwards, playing back the recording he had made of the spectacle, for a spectacle it truly had been. He was not entirely guilt-free himself: he had been the one to provide the music. Encouraging such behaviour among his fellow Decepticons certainly wasn't conducive to the war effort. However, he mused, forcing back a chuckle, it had certainly been most entertaining.

~~--~~--~~

_End_


End file.
